Medical marijuana outlets not linked to crime

Despite
some concerns to the contrary, neighborhoods with medical marijuana
dispensaries may not have higher crime rates than other neighborhoods—at least
in one California city.

That’s the conclusion of a new study
in the July issue of the Journal of
Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. UCLA Luskin researchers found that, across Sacramento
neighborhoods, there was no evidence that having a higher density of medical
marijuana dispensaries was related to higher rates of violent crime or property
crime.

As more U.S. states have legalized
the use of marijuana for medical reasons, there have been growing concerns that
the dispensaries that sell the drug—and the people who go there—will become
targets for crime.

“The reality is, we haven’t had any
evidence to support those claims,” said Nancy J. Kepple, M.S.W., a doctoral student at UCLA Luskin, who led the new study.

Kepple and her colleague, social welfare professor Bridget
Freisthler, looked at violent and property crime rates and the density
of medical marijuana outlets in 95 different areas of Sacramento in 2009. Not
surprisingly, commercial districts and neighborhoods with high unemployment
rates tended to have more property crime and violent crime. But there was no
correlation between crime and the concentration of medical marijuana outlets.

“This conclusion suggests that we
should further question whether medical marijuana dispensaries are related to
crime,” Kepple said.

But, she stressed, the study is far
from the final word. The researchers looked at neighborhoods at only one point
in time. So it’s not clear whether a neighborhood’s crime patterns might change
over time, after more medical marijuana dispensaries are opened.

“This study is a good first step,”
Kepple said. “But it was not designed to address the bigger picture of how
these dispensaries might be affecting neighborhoods.”

In addition, the findings are based
on one city, and other cities might have different experiences. Right now, 17
U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana use.

Kepple said that further studies in
other cities, and studies that follow crime rates over time, would help. “The
more research that’s done, the more complete a picture we’ll have.”

It would also be good to know why,
at least in this study, medical marijuana outlets were not linked to crime
rates, according to Kepple.

Does, for example, a dispensary’s
level of security matter? In this study, information on outlets’ security
measures was not incorporated. Therefore, it is not possible to tell how those
might have factored in. Future studies, Kepple said, should look at whether
strong security systems seem to deter crime.

The current research was funded by
the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.